tense

How to use tense in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for tense.

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Editorial note

Whereas the author of this article tenses up.

Examples14

Definitions8

Parts of speech3

Quick take

a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time

Meaning at a glance

The clearest senses and uses of tense gathered in one view.

noun

a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time

verb

become stretched or tense or taut; "the bodybuilder's neck muscles tensed;" "the rope strained when the weight was attached"

verb

increase the tension on; "alternately relax and tense your calf muscle"; "tense the rope manually before tensing the spring"

Definitions

Core meanings and parts of speech for tense.

noun

a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time

verb

become stretched or tense or taut; "the bodybuilder's neck muscles tensed;" "the rope strained when the weight was attached"

verb

increase the tension on; "alternately relax and tense your calf muscle"; "tense the rope manually before tensing the spring"

verb

become tense, nervous, or uneasy; "He tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room"

verb

cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious; "he got a phone call from his lawyer that tensed him up"

adjective

in or of a state of physical or nervous tension

adjective

pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles (e.g., the vowel sound in `beat')

adjective

taut or rigid; stretched tight; "tense piano strings"

Example sentences

Whereas the author of this article tenses up.

And, of course, once you're tense and you notice that you just flubbed something obvious, then you tense up even more.

I don't treat them badly, I smile at them on patrol, but the moment anything starts to get tense I have less than zero trust.

Any past tense verb in Russian is gender-specific.

First, future tense nostalgia is an interesting concept.

This led to some very tense discussions where I was accused of being a hacker, not caring about security, and plenty of other things.

The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not.

For most people, this means a very scary and tense race to the emergency room, with AED paddles & drugs to bring it down until the problem can be surgically eliminated.

Your use of past tense in referring to Gitmo and extraordinary rendition is, regrettably, unwarranted.

You're extrapolating everything into a very silly future-tense strawman that won't ever exist.

So unless the product completely avoids using verbs in past tense, making the language gender-neutral and natural-souding for Slavic group of languages is pretty much impossible.

But it's doable, and some things in the language are actually easier than in Western languages—the grammar, for example, is much simpler, and you don't have to worry about conjugations, or even verb tense as much.

So rare to hear about this kind of thing so "present tense"And is it just me or is it just a little bit funny to hear about an ALS patient getting frozen cryogenically right as the ice bucket challenge sweeps the globe... I dare say he's truly taken the ultimate ice bucket challenge!

* Terrible attention to detail: Geocities not capitalized, no space between popular and the open parenthesis, "I've Spent" capitalization, random use of present tense in job descriptions, the first entry under My Services is blank, etc.* Irrelevant information.